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The story of chocolate starts with the cocoa tree. The cocoa tree grows a long way from here, in areas around the equator, such as the Ivory coast, Ghana, Equador, Brasil, Malaysia, Indonisia... ................. A cocoa tree will produce 20 to 30 oval fruits, called pods, that grow to about 20 cm and turn from green to a yellow and red color.Each pod contains 25 to 40 seeds and these are the cocoa beans
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When the pods become yellow or orange in colour, they are ready to harvest. This happens all year round, with the main harvest period being from October to March Once harvested, the pods are opened and the valuable cocoa beans are taken out
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Now it is time to ferment the beans. They are fermented in troughs and conserved with banana leaves, the beans change from a creamy-white colour to brown, and this is when they start to develop their cocoa flavour. After fermentation, which takesabout one week, the cocoa beans are spread out and dried in the sun
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